Another, unintentionally quiet day today.

We had intended to go out and do some tours around Bogota today, but Leanne had spent most of the night with diarrhea and vomiting, so wasn’t feeling up to going anywhere.

She spent a lot of time sleeping while I looked after the kids.

In the afternoon, when Leanne was feeling a little better, we sat in the lounge and watched Madagascar 2 with Andres (Nicol largely ignored the TV) – although he doesn’t really have the attention span to be able to watch an entire movie yet.

By dinner time, Leanne was feeling up to eating a little food and so we booked a tour for tomorrow, hoping she would be okay to spend the day out and about.

Nicol seems to be sleeping a bit better now – she is only waking up once a night for a feed, which is much easier for us to cope with!

She is also much more responsive to us and looks up when we call her name. She is cheeky enough that if I tell her not to do something and shake my head at her, she will smile at me, shake her head, and then usually go and do it anyway.

We have also heard her say “Papa” a couple of times, and also do the baby-sign for “Mama” when she wanted Leanne to pick her up. She’s a quick learner!

A quiet day today – we had decided to hang around the hotel and relax for a bit after being out every day over the past week or so.

Leanne spent some time putting a few loads of washing on while I looked after the kids. The hotel provides a washing machine that the guests can use themselves for a nominal charge, which is far more economical than paying for hotels to do it for you. That being said, we weren’t charged at all for the washing we had done at the Hosteria Mi Monaco and it was done quickly too, so we couldn’t complain about that service!

We sat around the toy room while Andres and Nicol played and tried to keep Nicol out of the dirt in the garden and away from the power cords in the lounge.

After lunch we went for a walk to the nearby Parque 93, a very up-market area surrounded by restaurants with a beautiful park in the middle. We spent some time at the playground while Andres played and made friends (his friend spoke Spanish and French, but not English), while we watched the “beautiful people” of Colombia assemble for what turned out to be some kind of fashion event in temporary marquees in the park.

Before dinner, I ducked around to the supermarket again to get some more supplies, and this time I picked up a tub of arequipe (dulce de leche) icecream to stash in the freezer for when I was up late sterilising the bottles. Made the time much more pleasant!

A very early start today – we had a driver coming at 9:00am to take us to the airport for our flight to Bogota. For some reason, they like you to get to the airport 2.5 hours before a domestic flight. I understand that Bogota airport sometimes gets quite busy, but some of these regional airports shouldn’t need you there that early.

Either way, we were at the airport by around 9:30am – we arrived at what looked like a small out-building of the airport, but turned out to be the terminal building itself! There was one other car parked out front unloading passengers, so we stopped right by the door. Andres stopped and talked to a nice policeman standing by the curb while Leanne and I lugged our luggage into the terminal. The distance between the curb and the checkin counters (all four of them – one for each airline!) was so small that we didn’t even bother with a luggage cart – we just brought the bags in one-by-one, we were never that far from our other bags and there was practically nobody else around anyway!

Checkin took only a few minutes – after weighing our 5 bags (total weight: 95kg – less than I expected!), they handed us our boarding passes and waved us towards the departure gates. They didn’t mention anything about excess baggage and we didn’t ask, so we were grateful to avoid what I estimated to be around 130,000 pesos (AU$75) of charges. I guessed that the flight was nowhere near full, thus the additional baggage wouldn’t cause any problems for them.

We wandered towards the gates and found that there was a small pre-departure lounge before security and then a larger departure lounge after security. There were actually about 6 gates, but they were all just doors leading out to the tarmac, where you walked to your plane. Since we were almost 3 hours early for our flight, we decided not to go through security yet and instead sat in the food court – where there were six cafes servicing the one departure area. Slight overkill I think, but at least there was a choice of food and drinks (although most of the drinks were types of coffee).

The three hours passed fairly quickly – Andres decided to go for a run at one point and went from one end of the terminal building to the other. We could see him the entire time, so I wasn’t particularly concerned – the building wasn’t that big, probably less than 100m long. The staff seemed to take a liking to Andres and they would come up and shake his hand as he went past.

We witnessed a few planes coming and going while we waited – but none of them would have had more than a dozen seats in them.

Eventually, our plane arrived – the largest plane of the day by far, an Airbus A318. We passed through security and waited briefly in the departure lounge before being ushered across the tarmac and onto the plane first by the ground crew (yet another advantage of travelling with children).

At only 45 minutes long, we barely had time to have a drink before we began our descent into Bogota. I think the walk from the aircraft to the baggage claim area at the Avianca terminal at Bogota Airport was longer than the flight itself – at least it seemed that way!

Most of the other travellers on the plane must have been taking connecting flights, since there were only about 10 bags which came out onto the carousel, 5 of which were ours!

Outside the terminal, our guide and interpreter, Jorge was waiting for us. He took us to his car – fortunately he had brought a mini-van so we had plenty of room for our bags.

On the way, we asked if we could stop at the ICBF offices to collect our Compliance Certificate – possibly the most important document in the whole adoption process – without it, we might have difficulty leaving Colombia and we certainly wouldn’t be able to have Nicol become an Australian Citizen or get a passport! Jorge told us he had already heard from Magnolia that our certificate was ready and waiting for us, and since we were driving virtually right past the offices, it would be no problem to stop and collect them.

Jorge and I went in to ICBF while Leanne remained in the van with the kids. It didn’t take that long to get the certificate – we spent some time carefully checking the details to ensure there were no mistakes (which might cause problems in the future!) and I spent some time filling out a questionnaire for them – and then we were done. Having the certificate means that we are officially ready to leave Colombia – we are finished with the adoption process here and there is nothing else official required (other than presenting the certificate when leaving the country).

Sign out the front of the ICBF offices in Bogota

We continued on to our hotel – the Halifax, another hotel specialising in catering to adoptive families. Our room was upstairs this time, much larger than our room last trip – with plenty of space for both a single bed and a cot.

After unpacking and settling in, we made a trip around the block to the local supermarket for supplies.

Andres likes the playroom with toys for kids, and the small playground out the front is a nice diversion occasionally – even if not really that exciting for a lively 3yo.

The one thing I hadn’t missed from our last trip here was having to sterilise Nicol’s bottles ourselves. Unlike the Pension Stein in Cali where the kitchen staff will sterilise your bottles for you while you eat your meal, at the Halifax, they only provide you with the tools and you have to boil your own water and do the sterilisation yourselves. The worst part is waiting for the water to boil – which can take over half an hour with a large saucepan filled with water. Fortunately, they have good WiFi, so I was able to do some things on my computer while sitting in the kitchen waiting.

Another “late” start today with Gustavo picking us up at 10:30am.

Leanne tries to get Nicol to sleep

We drove south from Armenia this time to Recuca, a traditional Colombian coffee farm which specialises in education about how coffee is grown, picked, and processed.

Our guide carefully prepares cups of "tinto" for us.

As part of our tour, we tried “Tinto”, a traditional small serve of black coffee typically served in Colombia – carefully prepared for us with 100ml of hot (not boiling) water strained through 7g of ground coffee into a pre-warmed cup. We found it too bitter without sugar, but quite nice with some added. Even though we are not coffee drinkers at all, I think I could handle some traditional Tinto occasionally.

Leanne enjoys a cup of Tinto

Andres and I tried picking some coffee beans, very hard work I think, especially given much of the coffee is grown on land most people would consider inaccessible – near vertical mountainsides!

Leanne and Andres at Recuca

We were home in time for lunch.

Our room at the Hosteria Mi Monaco

Our room at the Hosteria Mi Monaco

Our room at the Hosteria Mi Monaco

Our room at the Hosteria Mi Monaco

Our room at the Hosteria Mi Monaco

Nicol tries climbing the steps into our room. The scratches on her nose are from falling down the stairs the first night we were there (nothing major, just scraped her nose on the rough stone)

After lunch, I tried taking some photos of birds and the trail of leaf-cutter ants that had been busy on a nearby tree for the past few days, but we were interrupted by a bad storm.

The pool area at Hosteria Mi Monaco

Dining room at the Hosteria Mi Monaco

Leaf cutter ants heading back to their nest

Leaf cutter ants at work up in the tree-tops

Leaf cutter ants coming down the tree

One of the dozens of species of bird seen around the area

Hummingbird at the feeder

It ended up raining heavily all afternoon, so I sat on a rocking chair under the verandah with both kids on my lap for an hour or so while Leanne got stuck into the packing.

While it rains outside, Andres tries out the trike brought over from her house by the cook

Another early start this morning – Gustavo picked us up at 9:30am (when I say early start – I mean we were up early to get ready to leave at 9:30am – takes a while to wrangle these two kids into getting ready!).

We drove through the city of Armenia, then up into the hills to the town of Salento. This little town set on a small plateau high in the mountains, was once on the main road between Popayán/Cali and Bogota. When the main road moved to its current location through Calarcá, the town became somewhat isolated and did not keep pace with the development of surrounding towns and cities. As such, the town retains much of its colonial architecture – narrow streets, colourful cottages, a relaxed way of life. Its stunning location, mild climate and proximity to the Coffee Region has made it a very popular tourist destination.

Cloud covered mountains tower behind the city of Armenia

Green hills north of Armenia - dairy country

Giant metal cow - I assume celebrating the dairy industry in the region

We didn’t stop on the way through, but instead continued further into the mountains to the Cocora Valley, on the edge of the Los Nevados National Natural Park. The Cocora Valley is famous for the Quindio Wax Palm – a very tall palm growing high in the mountains of this part of Colombia, and also the national tree and symbol of Colombia.

Rio Quindio coming down out of the mountains

Wax Palms in the clouds

We stopped at the end of the paved road in the valley and visited a trout farm where Andres enjoyed feeding the fish.

Favoured footwear by the locals

Feeding the trout

Bet you can't work out what this says (without Google Translate!) ... hint: "manos" = hands, "peces" = fish

Rainbow trout looking for food

We then went for a long walk through farming country, enjoying the cool mountain air and the quiet rural setting with spectacular views along the valley. It was an interesting juxtaposition – wax palm trees standing very tall – many literally with their heads in the clouds, with dairy cattle grazing on green grass below, and in the distance – large groves of eucalypt trees growing.

Cloud covered mountains around the Cocora Valley

Walking with Gustavo

Feeding the kids

Tall Wax Palms

Nicol splashing her feet in the frigid Rio Quindio - she complained when we stopped!

After our walk, we headed back to Salento and stopped at a restaurant for lunch. Leanne had the rainbow trout prepared in a traditional Colombian method – it was very tasty and I regretted buying a hamburger (I’m not a big fish eater), although the burger was still very tasty.

Colourful buildings around the main square in Salento

Church near the main square in Salento

The streets of Salento

Following lunch, we drove up to a lookout which looked up the Cocora Valley and also over the town of Salento and were treated to some spectacular views.

Andres checks out the views of the Cocora Valley

Views up the Cocora Valley

Leanne and Nicol admire the views

Salento from the lookout

Playground at the top of the lookout above Salento

Rainbow over the Cocora Valley

Finally, we headed back and not long after leaving Salento, very heavy rain prevented us enjoying the views on the way home – which was a bit of a disappointment. By the time we got back to Armenia, the rain had cleared up and we were able to enjoy the sights and sounds of this thriving city.

Huge bamboo "tree"

Back at the hotel, I jumped in the pool with Andres to cool down until one of the typical afternoon storms came through.

Nicol stands up in her cot to see what Andres is doing

After our late lunch, we requested a light dinner and enjoyed some very tasty jamon y queso tostados (ham and cheese toasted sandwiches) while sitting on the verandah in front of our room.

We got to sleep in a little today (very little – the kids still don’t get the concept of sleeping in!) – we asked Gustavo to pick us up at 10:30am and drive us to the Quindio botanic gardens and butterfly house.

Andres looking after his baby sister

Andres helps Nicol to stand up

Play area down the hill from the dining room

The dining room - open air, which is very common in Colombia

Bird feeder frequented by Hummingbirds

Gustavo took us on a leisurely drive through the outskirts of Armenia, then onto the main road to Bogota for a short period before we arrived at the botanic gardens. Bogota may be less than 400km from here, but we have been assured it can take over 12 hours to get there due to the winding roads through the mountains.

Our guide for the visit was Diego, who spoke quite good English – guides for the park are students and are not paid (although a tip is expected).

The botanic gardens are set along a natural valley in the foothills of the Cordillera Central – the middle of the three mountain ranges that run north-south through Colombia. It is a beautiful location, with a lot of natural forest and a wide range of plants and flowers.

Crossing a suspension bridge across a valley at the Botanic Gardens

It was drizzling a little when we started out but after a while it turned into a steady rain. The rain actually enhanced the experience of walking through native forest, but when it turned to a downpour, we took shelter in a bird hide and watched a wide variety of wild birds come and sample some of the fruit they had put out on feeders.

Butterfly House as seen from the top of the Botanic Gardens lookout tower

Nicol enjoying the outing

After our walk through the forest, we were shown their collection of carnivorous plants, followed by a beautiful cactus garden which contained about a dozen bird feeders, attracting dozens of hummingbirds. They also had a collection of bamboo roots, which looked like some kind of alien monster from a sci-fi horror movie.

Some of their collection of carnivorous plants

Alien monster collection (aka bamboo roots)

We then headed to their butterfly house – one of the largest I’ve ever seen. It was a beautifully constructed feature of the park and worth the visit on its own merits.

Enjoying the butterfly house

Butterfly tries to bid for freedom hitching a ride on Leanne's back

All up, the tour lasted nearly 3 hours and we were quite tired by the end of it (especially since I had carried Andres on my shoulders for most of it!).

Gustavo drove us back to the Hosteria, where we discovered we were now the only guests. There’s nothing like personalised service! The cook even brought our dinner to our room and we ate it out on the verandah, enjoying the mild evening air.

Andres and Nicol relax in the hammock

Early start this morning, we had a 9:30am pickup by Gustavo, the driver organised for us by the girls from the travel agency.

Gustavo drove us to the Colombian National Coffee Park, only about 15 minutes away from our hosteria.

Feeding Nicol a bottle before we started our tour of the Coffee Park

The Parque Nacional del Café is a theme park, a combination of museums, historical and cultural exhibitions about coffee production in Colombia – plus an amusement park with rides and shows.

Views of the Coffee Park and surrounding farms

National Coffee Park

Coffee growing down the side of the hill

We spent the day looking at the exhibitions, enjoying the walk through the coffee plantation (along a winding path down a steep hill where the coffee was growing!), and wandering around the amusement park.

Nicol enjoying the outing

Suspension bridge

It was a very tiring day – especially with the heat and humidity. We paid for unlimited rides for Andres (it was a standard kids ticket), but couldn’t convince him to go on much – I think he was a bit nervous about things. We did have a breakthrough when we discovered a carousel that had pictures of Goofy on it, Andres thought he might like to go on that one, since it had Mickey Mouse’s friend on it. We also went on a smallish Ferris Wheel together and we enjoyed the train ride through the park.

Train waiting at the station

Enjoying the train ride through the park

Train ride

Later in the day, Andres got a bit tired and grumpy and wouldn’t even let us go on some adult rides by ourselves – so we didn’t really get our money’s worth from the tickets we had purchased. The joys of travelling with a 3yo I guess!

Nicol enjoys the carousel

Riding the Teleferico back to the top of the park

Views towards the city of Armenia and the Cordillera Central from the lookout at the top of the Coffee Park

Gustavo picked us up at 4pm and drove us a bit further down the road to the town of Montenegro – complete with old buildings, narrow streets and people everywhere. We had been told that Sunday was the day that all the farmers went into town – interesting contrast to Cali, where Sunday is the day that all the Caleños head out into the countryside to find restaurants and amusement parks! We stopped at a small supermarket for some supplies and visited an ATM to  get cash to pay for our tours for the coming days before heading back to the hosteria in time for dinner.

We all went to bed early again – another tiring day!

We were up early this morning to finish packing – our driver was arriving at 11am. Rather than flying back to Bogota, we decided to visit the Coffee Region north of Cali for a few days and fly to Bogota from a city nearby rather than driving all the way back to Cali. Magnolia had organised a driver and an air-conditioned car for us … for just over $200 to drive us nearly 4 hours (and then return back to Cali himself), it was pretty good value.

The power went out just after breakfast – it has been a bit unreliable since the large storm which took out the power for 24 hours. However, on most occasions the outage was short. This time though, it didn’t come back on. I figured that perhaps the power company were making repairs to the transformers or something. It was bright enough to not need power, so we didn’t think much more of it while we finished our packing.

We were ready to leave at 10:30am and the power was still not on – so when I went to pay our hotel bill, they were not able to process electronic payments. They did have offline vouchers they could use, but had to call the bank for authorisation. Half an hour later, the response from the bank was that the bill was higher than their limit for offline payments – they would not honour the transaction!

The hotel staff asked if I could pay using another card – but the amount of the bill was larger than my entire credit limit on my VISA card – so there was no way that was going to happen. Even if we were able to split the bill between cards, I did not have enough credit currently available on my card – and without power, we had no internet, which meant I couldn’t just log on and transfer some money across to my credit card account. Of course, if we had power (and internet) for me to do that, we wouldn’t need to do it anyway, since we could process the transactions electronically.

The staff called Enrique to try and sort something out – but his only suggestion was to ask us to wait until midday when the power company had said the power should be back on. That was an hour past the time we were due to leave – we had a driver booked to drive us nearly 4 hours north of Cali, so we didn’t really want to be hanging around the hotel. Unfortunately right now we couldn’t find a better solution, so we asked the driver to wait and we sat around the hotel impatiently waiting to see if the power came back. I figured it was a futile exercise, since the last time the power company promised the power would be back on by a certain time, it ended up being more than 3 hours later before it finally came back.

When we got past 11:30am with no power still, I decided to call Magnolia and check that everything would be okay with the driver. She assured us that everything would be okay, but was horrified that they were keeping us there. She promised to make some calls and see what she could work out. When she called back about 10 minutes later, she said that Enrique was not answering his phone and she couldn’t get hold of anyone else – her advice was to just leave and we’ll sort out the payment remotely once the power came back on. She told the staff that she would take responsibility for letting us leave so that they would not get into trouble. We had already signed the offline voucher for half the bill – with authorisation from the bank, so at least they had half the payment.

So we got ready to leave – which actually took quite some time with nappy changes, toilet visits, and such – and we were just loading the last of our bags into the car when the power came back on! About 10 minutes before midday – so the power company was actually on schedule for once. I went back to reception and paid the remainder of the bill electronically and said goodbye.

We jumped in the car, thankful for some air-conditioning – it was a hot day already and headed out. We were an hour behind schedule, so I didn’t know if we were going to stop for lunch somewhere or try and drive straight through. We had plenty of biscuits and milk and Andres and bottles for Nicol, so we should be okay.

Our driver seemed to be trying to make up for lost time, not exactly speeding, but not taking a leisurely pace either – especially on the corners!

The kids ended up sleeping most of the first few hours – they are both quite good travellers. They didn’t miss much anyway, other than sugar cane, a few cows, and a lot more sugar cane.

We eventually stopped at a roadside restaurant for a very late lunch, before continuing on our journey. We soon headed into the hills – the vegetation changed, the farms and crops changed, and the scenery became much more interesting.

Some of the scenery from our trip to the Coffee Region

Finally, we turned off the main road and drove down a narrow, winding road through mile after mile of banana plantations. We thought we were going to the “Coffee Region”, but so far had not seen any coffee plants!

It was late afternoon when we arrived at our destination – Hosteria Mi Monaco, a small farm which had been set up as a hotel with 22 rooms and capacity for up to 84 people. Set on the side of a hill in the countryside amongst banana palms, with a small stream running past surrounded by tall bamboo, we were immediately struck by how peaceful it was here. Indeed, the only noise we heard (other than the occasional car driving past on the road), was birds, chooks, a couple of dogs and some pet parrots kept by the staff.

There didn’t seem to be many people around – but we figured most of them were probably out sightseeing during the day. We knew the owner was going to be away, but it seemed that when we arrived, it was just us, the cook/cleaner and her family – they lived in a small house on the property.

When we came to the dining room (open-air, as most of them in Colombia seem to be) for dinner, we were greeted by two girls from a local travel agency. Magnolia had arranged for them to organise tours for us while we were in the region. They both spoke English, which helped a lot, and they explained that they were working hard to encourage all of the major tourist destinations in the area to provide English speaking guides or staff – to make it more attractive for foreign tourists with limited Spanish skills to visit.

They described the best of what the region had to offer to us, and wrote us a short-list of places we should visit and how much each would cost. We arranged to visit the Coffee National Park the next day, since it was close to the hosteria and considered a must-visit. We agreed to think about the other options and let them know tomorrow night what we wanted to do for the rest of our stay.

We all went to bed early, exhausted from the long day.

After breakfast this morning, Enrique organised a driver with a van to take us on a city tour. We stopped at several lookouts with views over the city, including the Cristo Rey monument. Unfortunately, it was a very hazy day – even more hazy than our last visit here in 2009, so we couldn’t see much of the city from the mountain top.

View of the Cali River

Nicol and Leanne at Cristo Rey

Andres near Cristo Rey

Houses built on steep hills

San Antonio Church - very old

Narrow streets of San Antonio

When we got back to the hotel, we got stuck into packing – ready to leave tomorrow.

After lunch, Magnolia picked up the American family to take them shopping, they dropped me off at the LAN office on the way – they had called Magnolia to let us know that the flight change was ready to process and I just needed to come in to the office to pay the penalty. They also assured us that one of the staff there would speak English, so I wouldn’t need Magnolia to translate. The idea was that the driver would drop me off, take Magnolia and the Americans to the shops, come back and pick me up, drop me back at the hotel and then go back for the others.

Unfortunately, when I got to the LAN office, I had to sit there for a while before the girl who was dealing with our changes was available. I sat and watched as the staff struggled to get the boarding pass printer working again. The girl I was waiting for came downstairs and proceeded to work with the other staff on trying to get the printer working. After a while, I was starting to get a bit annoyed – did it require an entire office to fix a printer?

Eventually one of the other staff who had  been there the last two visits came over and explained (in quite good English) that my changes were ready to process, they just needed to print the penalty notice out on the broken boarding pass printer. I was a little surprised, since the entire time we were in the office previously (including yesterday when Magnolia and I were joking to each other about the printer), she did not acknowledge at all that she spoke good English! At least the  explained why my girl was also working on the problem. I did wonder why they couldn’t just print out any notices on their laser printer.

Eventually, after a few more phone calls, they ended up coming over with a printout (from the laser printer!) that showed the changes being made and the reference number for the change which I could show at the airport if there were any problems checking in. I paid the penalty, which had gone up overnight from what we were originally told – we were being changed per person for the changes and then they added about 33% of one of those charges for Nicol as well, just for good measure. It ended up being just over $300 penalty just to cancel our one hour flight!

So after nearly an hour, I was finally ready to go, the driver had been waiting outside the whole time, I assume he had already spoken to Magnolia – he took me to where they were (less than 5 minutes away), we picked them up from the shops and headed back towards the hotel to drop me off so that the others could then continue on to the artisan park at Loma de la Cruz. However, along the way, we remembered that I had asked about getting some bubble wrap to help protect some of the more fragile items in our luggage.

Magnolia instructed our driver to head towards Loma de la Cruz, then on to a small shop which sold various plastics and such my the metre off rolls. He had a large roll of bubble wrap and so I bought 10m of it and some packing tape – cost 18,000 pesos, around $10. Next, the driver dropped Magnolia and the Americans off at Loma de la Cruz before taking me back to the hotel – he then headed back to wait for the others to finish the shopping.

So, it had been a bit of a long afternoon, and we still had packing to do, while looking after two young kids.

We said a sad farewell to Magnolia – we have come to think of her as our Colombian mother, looking after us while we are here, giving advice, running errands, helping with the kids, organising things for us – we would not have survived here without her. We do hope to visit again when the kids are a little older.

The family saying goodbye to Magnolia

Three amigos at the hotel - Hector, Luis and Andres

It ended up being quite a late night – after we got the kids to sleep, I sat there cutting off strips of bubble-wrap with the knife of our Leatherman multi-tool (which has been used on practically every trip we’ve done since we bought it in 2007 – well worth the money!), while Leanne wrapped the various items and taped them up. Alarmingly, the new bag filled quickly before we packed all the things we had bought, but we were hopeful that we would find space for the remaining stuff across our other bags, which we deliberately didn’t fill to capacity.

Today Magnolia picked us and the American family up with a minivan at 11am to take us all to AcuaParque de la Caña – a water park.

We were worried about the weather early on, but we needn’t have been concerned – the weather in the east of the city is usually warmer and drier than where the hotel is, plus it ended up being a warm sunny day anyway- indeed I think most of us ended up getting sunburned if we hadn’t been careful enough with the sunscreen.

One of the smaller pools at the water park

Andres had a great time going down the small water slides, but he also really enjoyed the huge wave pool which generated waves almost large enough to surf on. He stayed near the far edge where the water and waves weren’t so high, but he still ventured out far enough to dive over the incoming waves.

Andres having fun on the water slides

Andres and Luis playing on the slides

Andres climbs up the water slide (frequently slipping back down into the pool)

Leanne did take him on one of the larger water slides a couple of times, but he got a bit upset at the fast entry into the water at the end, so we didn’t hang around there too long. The small water slides were much more his style and he was quite content to play there.

Going down one of the big water slides with Mama

Leanne managed to get a few laps in over at the boring old lap-pool, which she said was quite refreshing to be able to swim properly – she swims regularly at home, and none of the pools we have visited so far in Cali have been really suitable for swimming laps.

Nicol really enjoyed sitting in the shallow water near the small water slides and splashing around. We had to stop her a couple of times from diving into the deeper water – definitely going to need swimming lessons as soon as possible!

Nicol enjoys splashing in the water too

We got back to the hotel around 3pm, very tired.

Magnolia arranged a taxi so she could take me back to the LAN office to try and sort out changing our flights out of Cali.

After a few minutes chatting about what we had decided to do, the girl from LAN disappeared upstairs and we heard nothing more from her for nearly an hour. While we waited, Magnolia and I chatted and made jokes about the staff in the office who were trying to get their boarding pass printer to work. I suggested all sorts of typical IT support techniques (including using a sledge hammer)  - but they didn’t seem interested in my help. Either that, or they didn’t understand English.

Eventually, the girl came back and explained that they had not been able to sort out the changes themselves and had sent the information to head office in Santiago (Chile) to be processed. I would have thought that cancelling a single flight would have been rather simple – but I think the complication was in dealing with the “unique” nature of our tickets where we had an infant travelling with us one way (from Colombia) which was causing problems. I know they took a long time to originally ticket the flights when we first booked them.

We might have been tempted to just try not turning up for our flight – but I believe that if that had happened, our flights from Bogota to Santiago and then Santiago to Sydney may have been cancelled too! That would not be good.

I think next time, if we have the time – I’ll get our travel agent back in Sydney to try and make the change, let them chase things up for hours, instead of me needing to spend so much time sitting in an office, staring at the wall.

Perhaps it would have been better to spend the extra money to fly Avianca for the domestic legs within Colombia – they have a better flight schedule (dozens of daily flights rather than 4 or 5 on LAN), and are probably going to be easier to deal with changes – we certainly had no trouble last time, although we were only changing the date of our flight, not trying to cancel one leg. Avianca was significantly more expensive as an alternative when we booked though – and we also would have needed to factor in some hefty excess baggage fees as well, since they would not be honouring our international allowances. At least the LAN offices are nice and airconditioned!

We headed back to the hotel feeling tired from the long day, and a little dejected. Since we are due to leave on Saturday, I was a bit worried that we wouldn’t get this sorted out in time.

We all ended up going to bed early after dinner.